National Republican., 1887-04-27
CalhOun.

The addresses delivered at Charleston, at
the dedication Of the monument to the
memory of Calhoun are, Of course, eulo-
gistic OF the man and at the same time
conspicuously inexact as to the material
incidents Of his career.
He was described as one Of the highest
order Of intellect, gifted with the subtlest
insight into matters OF practical politics,
yet altogether ETHEREAL in his disdain Of or
Indifference to worldly advantages. For
mere power and place he had not the
shadow of n longing. He was content to
exist and subslst in the higher atmosphere
of purely speculative thought. Beyond
that he had no ambition. EXaggeration of
this kind is the accepted aud chronic
method Of discoursing of the dead; aud In
Calhoun's case there are special and urgent
easons for exceptional exaltation Of him and
hisideas. Really Calhoun's brain was acute,
but narrow. He could chop logic by the
hour, and none could better than he "diyide
u hair twixt west and nor'west side.n
Among the inventions and discoveries OF
men there are few whose priority Is not a
subject Of heated controversy. The title to
iuC ubpcitCu 10 ihSiJ ihuioPubuoiS'
But, it must be owned, 1t was Calhoun and
no one else who invented or dug out the
+. doctrine which has largely contributed to
make him famous. With his keeuer dis.
cerDment, he perceived what the founders
Of the republic had not suspected or sur
missed; what no thinker or writer before
him had SO much as limited at With pro-
founder and nicer accuracy than any one
who had preceded him, he had fathomei
the inner meaning Of the written words of
our organic act and also many things which
he had discovered between the lines.
What our constitution really means, how
It's clauses are to be interpreted, Chief
Justice Marshall, the greatest jurlst aud
perhaps the most robust thinker this con-
tinent has produced, might puzzle over and
20 astray over, but never this metaphysi-
clan and man of the closet and midnight oil
from South Carolina. lie knew, as If by
divination, what 1t was all about. In the
processes of investigation he pursued he
found that those who framed the constitu-
tion of the United States, and the people
who ratified and accepted it-while there
were few, he confessed, who fancied that
out OF homogeneous people they were
creating q nation-did not quite know wha.
they were trying to effect. They, therefore,
made very mockery, travesty OF u
government; for they provided, so says Cal
hOun, that any Of its members, or crel.
lures, might, at their own sweet Will, set
aside and defy the authority OF the federal
government. An act OF the national legis.
IA to,l,I ha nj 10
more of these phantom soverelgnties; they
might be diverted or Instructed by it-bnt
Il had no binding force or effect upon
them unless they so willed 1t. The
highest judicial authority might pronounce
the act in question constitutional; the
fundamental law itself might declare that
the constitution and the laws made In pur.
suance thereof-the Supreme Court being
made the sole and final judge Of such con-
formity-were to be the supreme law OF the
land, anything In the consultation OF the
laws OF any state to the contrary notwlth-
standing. All these stlpulatons and pro-
visions seemed to Calhoun petty and lncou.
sequential circumstances, aud clearly to
have no special or weightY import. Though
his theory was torn into shreds by Webster,
he reproduced 1t again and again just as
though nothing had eyer happened IT; and
it was finally eXhumed and reappeared
among his admirers and followers IN the
doctrine of secession which, indeed, is the
logical outcome Of the nulliheation hy-
pothesis.
And his Is the man In whose memory Is
to be erected monument because he was